boc4ever

Not sure if this belongs in Other or here, but here it goes.

My wife has decided to file for divorce, primarily because we cannot get along. We decided to go to mediation, rather than throw money at lawyers, etc. In the mediation she cited several reasons for the impending divorce. Among these were:

1) Verbal disagreements
2) The Dog
3) DVDs

I am not going to bother going into the verbal disagreements or dog reasons at this point. Here is her reasoning behind the DVDs:

We bought a house in Fall of 1999 after living together in an apartment since Fall of 1995. In case anyone is interested, we met in 1988, did not start dating until 1995, and got married in Oct 1997.

The house we decided to buy was in "move in condition" which was fine by me. I wouldn't consider myself a handyman and I was hoping to learn repairs as they became necessary. My wife is really into decorating and cosmetic alterations to the house. I put my spare cash into collectibles, cds, dvds, etc. For this reason, she became increasingly irritated at seeing packages arriving at the house on a regular basis. This became a point of contention because I was reluctant to contribute to a new roof, painting, pointing and other house related expenses. She did take some money out of our joint account, but paid for some out of pocket. By the way, the roof was fine (just getting older) and the house was painted because she didn't like the color. I am the type of person that isn't big on preventitive expenditures. When it came to the necessities, I did pay my share.

In the mediation, and in some of our counseling sessions, she expressed her extreme displeasure about my growing dvd collection. From my point of view, it is an investment, cathartic and a hobby. Her hobbies are decorating, crafts, etc.

Based on some of the other members of this forum, I don't think my collection is that out of control. There are obviously other things we did not agree upon that caused this, but I couldn't believe this was actually a topic of discussion in counseling and also the mediation. Since I am buying the DVDs with my own $, isn't that really my business? I never took a dime out of our joint account to buy any.

I'm just curious if this is the first documented case of DVDs being cited as a reason for divorce. Can anyone else feel my pain?

Thanks for letting me vent...

Rubix

Well when you are married there is no "your money", it's "our money". You should have tried to get her into watching the DVDs.

boc4ever

That I did, even bought her a couple for Christmas last year, still unwrapped. She just didn't find them as intriguing as I do...

Yakuza Bengoshi

Sorry to hear that your marriage is dissolving. "Disagreements over money" is often cited as a principal cause of friction in marriages. It's too bad that you weren't able to come to terms with this area of your relationship, but I imagine you'll both be better prepared to find partners with compatible outlooks on money in your future relationships. I wish you good luck in getting through the divorce with minimum head- and heartache.

Jamers

DVD aren't a very good investment since their value keeps dropping and new special editions keep getting released making the originals obsolete. A marriage on the other hand becomes more valuable over time. You could have just gotten Netflix.

Jackskeleton

damn, You're hardcore.

BizRodian

So what did the dog do?

Mediation is a good method, as long as no one back stabs and goes to a lawyer to see what they can "really" get out of the deal, and is conned.

DVDho78DTS

I don't understand the concept of having personal & joint accounts in a marriage. I understand having money to spend how you choose but can't you do that with a joint account? It almost seems like a point of mistrust. As if you can do what you want with your personal account but don't screw up the joint account too, or I better have a personal account because I might get stupid and mess up the joint account. Am I being irrational or insensitive?

steebo777

That sucks, but at least you still have the DVDs (even though you're one wife short now).

boc4ever

The dog is an Australian Cattle Dog and has a very territorial nature. Her "herding" instinct kicks in whenever we try to leave the house. One day the dog nipped the back of my wife's leg as she was leaving. The dog was particularly agitated because my wife had gone in and out of the house several times in a short period of time. For this reason, she wanted to get rid of the dog. We had adopted the dog to begin with, so I didn't feel right about giving up on her so easily. I look at pets as part of the family that can't be discarded when they become difficult.

Your point is well taken about the financial return on investment. I wasn't planning on getting rich, but I view any collection as an investment.

I share in your viewpoint of marriage. I still wanted to make things work when she announced this back in October. We had been married for six years before she decided it was finally over.

Over the course of this past year, I greatly reduced my weekly total expenditures to show "compromise." Part of the problem is that I felt I was the only one doing the compromising, if you know what I mean...

Jackskeleton

I will stand with you on this one. DVD's are good investment in entertainment. say you want to see _____ movie. instead of spending the 4 bucks at blockbuster every time you feel like watching it, you got it right there.

A marriage, if both parties are not 100% committed, is not a good investment. people change, people move on, people are people and really, if the other party is not making you happy, you really do need to reflect on why you are with them. I'm sorry for the problems you will go through because of this, but atleast you can move on now to something/one that does make you happy. if you two decide to make it work, more power to you, but in the end, it takes two to tango.

Jericho

Not knowing much about the situation it's tough to say. I'd defintely lean more toward letting one do what he wants. I'm not talking about free reign here, but one spouse has to let another pursue his or her interests (which will obviously cost money). Sure you'd want to compromise some as well, but I wouldn't give something up just because she says so. That's too much

boc4ever

This has always been a problem for us. I felt the same way about having joint accounts. She wanted to keep funds separate, except for a joint account to pay house bills. I also felt that this was a huge statement, but I loved her, so I dealt with it. You are not being irrational at all.

The part that makes this even more difficult is that she has always made more money than me, which bothered her. Over the years, I managed to come closer to earning a similar income ( I worked in the radio industry for many years). However, we had a discussion about where my radio career was headed and we decided that a new career path might be a wiser idea. She convinced me that becoming a teacher was the path to a more stable income. Knowing that I would have to take a pay cut, and go back to school to make this happen, I agreed because I was expecting to have a future with my wife. I quit my job, took a paycut of about 7K and started teaching in Phila while pursuing my Masters at Temple. Although I am eventually going to be able to find a better paying teaching job in 2004, I am definitely feeling the hit of the pay cut. This also contributed to why I have been more careful about buying DVDs over this past year...

edytwinky

My dad's almost in the same boat. I recently got my father into buying DVD's and now he's spending quite a bit on it. He won't even use his credit card for Columbia House because he doesn't want my mom finding out all the money he spends on DVD's. He has to use mine.

Numanoid

Wait...I'm confused. Did you both agree to divorce BEFORE you found out about what she plan to list as causes? If so, what's the difference what she lists...she probably had to put something. Better than "He beats me" or "Infidelity".

Buck Turgidson

Your collection is a fairly typical size, compared to the rest of us around here. If you had one the size of gutwrencher's, or it consisted largely of Penthouse and Vivid discs, I can maybe see that she would have a problem. Your collection hardly seems excessive.

I'm a bit surprised that you encountered problems after being together for so long. Often times, a lengthy relationship really smooths the way of problems for an eventual marriage.

Bcolon

This is how my wife and I handle our money. The majority of our pay checks go into our joint account and then we each get an "allowance" each pay period. We each spend this money however we please. Since I don't drink or smoke, most of my money goes towards DVDs and my home theater. This type of spending, as we have just seen, can cause lots of problems in a marriage, but I don't even remember the last time we fought over money. She does say it is a little sick how many DVDs I have, but she knows I love them, so it is not a big deal. I am a principal and she is a teacher, so we are not "rolling" in it either.

I still remember a day back in the Buy.com unlimited 10 dollar coupon days where my friend was going to buy True Lies for something like 7 bucks. He got all the way to the checkout, paused and then closed the window. I asked what he was doing. He said he didn't know if his wife would want it. Over 7 BUCKS!

El-Kabong

Man, kick that broad to the curb! Your DVDs will provide all the lovin' you'll ever need!

However if a collection that contains Blair Witch, Charlie's Angels and Friends isnt grounds for divorce, I dont know what is. . . .

[this message closed captioned for the Humor Impared]

badger1997

Hmmm...maybe I am wrong here, but to me housing related expenses should really come before a DVD collection. I think your wife was right to be upset if you were reluctant to contribute to those costs. You both lived there, shouldn't you both pay for something that you are both benefitting from? And I don't get your point about not being big into "preventitive expenditures." Doesn't it make more sense to do preventitive fixes to your house rather than wait to have it fall down around you and see your bills get even bigger.

It just seems to me that she is more in the right here, although I don't have all the facts clearly. If I placed my DVD collection above more basic expenses such as fixing my roof than I would expect my wife to leave me too.

I have to disagree with you on the dog too. If the dog is that hyperactive that it bites your wife and you still aren't willing to side with your wife over the pet, I think there might be deeper issues at play.

I guess the bottom line for me is the stuff she was doing that you were reluctant to contribute to in lieu of your DVD collection seem more like real investments to me than buying a bunch of shiny discs that are only likely to depreciate in value. If my wife got into some hobby and was reluctant to contribute to expenses for our house, I guess I would have to sit her down and talk things over and if things didn't change, it would cause even more problems.

I know you won't hear it from many people around here, but if you are on that small of an income as you seemed to have been in the radio business, a collection numbering more than 300 does seem a bit excessive to me. But that's just me. Priorities need to be set and housing expenses really seem more improtant to me than any DVD collection.

iove

I say ditch the w!tch (<----------feel free to change some letters) and keep your DVD collection. Face it some marriage don't work and I doubt DVDs are the real culprit. Maybe it's her way of saying you spend more time on DVD than you do on her. I personally prefer movies than speinding quality time getting nagged or criticized myself. Either way, that's still better than citing reasons like infidelity, drug use, sexual deviancy, etc. To celebrate your divorce considering going out and buying more DVDs in her memory. BTW: Did DDD 20% coupon have anything to push her over the edge?

MikeM

I have a feeling that your DVD collection from this day forward will now consist of a lot more porn.

EPKJ

boc4ever, I really think that you are not ready to be married. Your house and its state of repair is a much higher priority than your DVD collection. I can understand that your wife would be upset by your attitude. Having said that, I believe that your real problem is that you and your wife do not share values and are only now discovering this.

Jackskeleton

Also on a side note, if the radio gig is getting you by alright, keep it. I would much rather do something that I like to do then be forced to do something I don't in order to live a more comfortable life. It's your job, you gotta atleast like doing it.

Steps

It was probably "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, - Special Edition" that put her over the edge.

On another note; I'll offer my mediation services for "Eraserhead" and "The Short Films of David Lynch."

Good Luck.

Kinyo

Chicks and DVDs just don't mix.